ng to the hostess, and moved
through the assemblage with quite the proper poise. He didn't look
bored, neither did he appear overimpressed by the almost palatial
elegance of the ball-room. He even managed to suppress any outward signs
of elation at the sight of Miss Dalrymple with whom he had but the
opportunity for a word or two, at first. Naturally the center of
attraction, the young girl found herself forced to dance often. He, too,
whirled around with others, just whom, he did not know; he dipped into
Terpsichorean gaiety to escape the dowager's inquisition regarding that
haphazard flight from the _Nevski_ and other details he did not wish to
converse about. But his turn came with Betty at last, and sooner than he
had reason to expect.

"Ours is the next?" she said, passing him.

Was it? He had ventured to write his name thrice on her card, but
neither of the dances he had claimed was the next.

"I put your name down for this one myself," she confessed to him a few
moments later. "Do you mind?"

Did he? The evening wore away but too soon; he held her to him a little
while, only over-quickly to be obliged to yield her to another. And now,
after a third period of waiting, the time came for their last dance. He
went for it as soon as the number preceding was over; he wanted, not
only to miss none of it, but he hungered to snatch all the prelude he
could. The conventional-looking young personage she had been dancing
with regarded the approaching Mr. Heatherbloom rather resentfully, but
he moved straight as an arrow for her. At once she stepped toward him,
and he soon found himself walking with her across the smooth shining
floor, on into the great conservatory. Here were soft shadows and
wondrous perfumes. Mr. Heatherbloom breathed deeply.

"But a few days more, and we're en route for home." It was the girl who
spoke first--lightly, gaily--though there was a thrill in her tones.

He started and did not answer at once. "That will be great, won't it?"
His voice, too, was light, but it did not seem so spontaneously glad as
her own.

"You _are_ pleased, aren't you?" she said suddenly.

"Pleased? Of course!"

A brief period of inexplicable constraint! He looked at one of her hands
resting on the edge of a great vase--at a flower she held in her
fingers.

"May I?" he said, and just touched it.

"Of course!" she laughed. "A modest request, after all you've done for
me!"

Her fingers placed it in the rented coat